Jacqueline Solway

“Slow marriage,” “fast bogadi”: change and continuity in marriage in Botswana

Classic work on Tswana marriage emphasises that it is a process of becoming, involving a series of rituals and prestations characterised by a long period of socially productive ambiguity in which the status of the union, the spouses, their children and their broader families remain uncertain. Marriage was a “total social phenomenon” entailing the intermingling of the economic, social and political spheres and continual gift circulation, thereby fostering dense social networks. In the twenty-first century, relatively few people marry, marriage is largely a middle class phenomenon, and people marry in civil ceremonies such that marriage is virtually instantaneous. Associated rituals occur over one or two days and bridewealth [bogadi] is usually given at the time of marriage. This article examines what such a time contraction in the rituals and prestations means and what it might suggest about marriage, the person and kinship. I propose two ideal types to capture this evolving process, “slow marriage” to depict marriages in the past and “fast bogadi’ to characterize contemporary marriages in which the rituals and gifts exchanged between marrying families occur over a brief time period. I draw on the concept of “possessive individualism” to help understand changing notions of personhood.

Taking stock in the Kalahari: accumulation and resistance on the Southern African periphery

This paper examines the relationship between patterns of accumulation, the cultural forms through which change is understood and experienced, and resistance in the Kalahari, Botswana. The paper argues that contemporary forms of accumulation and social differentiation constitute a break from past forms and are resulting in an uneven process of class formation. However, these changes can be assimilated, to a large degree, within existing ideological and behavioural models so that discontinuity is not always evident. As a result the process of change is muted, and a minimum of conflict accompanies a major transformation. The social domains which do become contested are those in which structural change produces a situation in which the moral grounds of the kin‐based community are violated. The paper acknowledges the complexities of power as well as the forces of cohesion and consensus which exist simultaneously in the Kalahari and in which any analysis of resistance must be contextualized.

Voicing the ancestors: Readings in memory of George Stocking

In this Forum, four anthropologists have chosen an “ancestral” figure to give voice to. Anthropologists’ ancestors are generally teachers, mentors, or, less proximally, canonized scholars of prior generations. Anthropologists draw on their ancestors for theoretical wisdom and practical guidance. Yet ancestors are not always shared broadly across our discipline, and they can easily fall into oblivion. Giving voice to them, publicly, allows each contributor to comment on an important scholar and invites readers to renew their acquaintance with disciplinary ghosts who still have much to teach us.

Fragmented Worlds, Coherent Lives: The Politics of Difference in Botswana

Foreword Introduction Fragmented Lives Gender, Conjugality, and Family Making a Living, Making a Home Historical Narratives as Identity Discourses The Politics of Space and Place Social Space, Collective Identity, and Moments of Resistance Ethnecizing Gender, Engendering the Ethnic Other Conclusions Bibliography Index